ANOHNI: "4 Degrees"
Earlier this year, a study found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace, the Earth’s temperature will rise by four degrees Celsius by the end of the century, threatening one-sixth of the world’s species with extinction. Reversing course has long seemed like a rare possibility. There’s our natural human inclination toward greed and consumption, and the innate hypocrisy of the West claiming to care about climate change as we use our laptops, blast our air conditioners, and support companies that pump smog into the atmosphere and dump poison into the waters. That’s to say nothing of the intractable political bloc insisting climate change isn’t our problem, and that things will work out as God intends—assuming we haven’t drowned in the steadily rising waters before then.
ANOHNI, formerly known as Antony Hegarty, has long pondered the ethical imperative of being a global citizen. The problem of climate change is one she cannot overcome. “I have grown tired of grieving for humanity,” she said of “4 Degrees”, her new song, “and I also thought I was not being entirely honest in pretending that I am not part of the problem.” Announced by war drums and portentous horns loaned by Hudson Mohawke (who co-produced the song with Oneohtrix Point Never), ANOHNI imagines the apocalypse through the unsentimental death of the world’s creatures. Lemurs, fish, dogs, the animals in the trees—they all die. They are victims of our uncaring lifestyles because, as she sings, to “want to see this world” is to participate in its slow annihilation. When ANOHNI justifies to herself that “it’s only four degrees,” the falsetto note she hits is chilling and utterly devastating. I’ve always heard a holiness in ANOHNI’s voice—a sureness that there are things in life grander than you and me. But none of that matters if we destroy what’s around us.
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